Author: Greg Sanders 2018-01-08 14:34:39
Published on: 2018-01-08T14:34:39+00:00
The discussion in the bitcoin-dev mailing list centers on the use of multilingual support in bip39, a standard for creating deterministic wallets. The original post by 木ノ下じょな describes how Japanese users struggle with English words when writing down their seed phrases. This is problematic as it can lead to errors and loss of funds. The post argues that forcing everyone to only use English is not a good way to move forward as a currency.Another post by nullius highlights the issue with single-language wordlists and suggests expanding the language identification strings in bip39. The post challenges those who argue for English-only mnemonics to bet their own money on their ability to handwrite a non-English backup phrase. The post also points out that non-English literate individuals would struggle with transcribing gibberish in a foreign writing system. The discussion veers towards criticism of multilingual support, with some arguing for English-only mnemonics. However, nullius argues that restricting the standard to English artificially would limit its usefulness and that there are currently seven non-English wordlists in bip39 with four more pending. Overall, the discussion highlights the importance of considering the needs of non-English speaking users when designing standards for cryptocurrency wallets.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T23:27:29.460860+00:00